Most families have at least one pressure cooker in the kitchen. When the pressure cooker is initially obtained, all sorts of foodstuff are cooked, but after a few weeks of use, interest in the pressure cooker is lost, and the cooker is stored and seldom emerges from the kitchen cabinet extept for an occasional, hurried dish of meat or vegetables. One reason for this lack of use of the pressure cooker lies in the difficulty involved in cleaning the lid, gasket, and the coacting fastener means. Others feel that the high pressure steam exhausting into the atmosphere substantially reduces the flavor of the food. Still others feel that large food masses are difficult to uniformly cook throughout the food, while still others object to the resultant starchy mess which often accumulates in the bottom of the cooker when pasta and the like is cooked. There is also an objection to the appearance of the upper surface of many foodstuffs because it is not properly browned, especially with dishes such as pastas and cobblers. Therefore, many cooks abandon the advantages of the pressure cooker because of these many drawbacks.
It would be desirable to be able to steam cook cobblers, custards, casseroles, pot pies, roasts, pastas, baked potatoes, stews, stuffed peppers, chile, and all sorts of other magnificent foods without the above recited disadvantages. The present invention provides a new method of steam cooking food which avoids the above drawbacks presently associated with the ordinary pressure cooker. An apparatus which enables these desirable cooking attributes to be realized is the subject of the present invention.
There are many foods which cannot be satisfactorily prepared in a standard pressure cooker, such as the following examples: meat loaf, western goolash, San Antonio style chili (extra thick and meaty), peach cobbler, fresh apple cobbler, rhubarb cobbler, cherry cobbler, sweet potato cobbler, stuffed bellpeppers, Chinese rice casserole, swiss steak, bean and jalepena casserole, tuna casserole, chicken pot pie, beef pot pie, Mexican casserole, rice pudding, chicken and noodle casserole, baked white potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, beef chowmein, pork chow mein, chicken chow mein, meat balls and spaghetti, chili rellenos, beef and vegetable casserole, chicken and dressing and ranch style beans.
One unexpected and unobvious result gained by the use of the present invention is the capability of satisfactorily cooking the above listed foodstuffs.